Hamnet

I wasn’t going to see it even though I adore Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal because I really hated the book and I knew what the movie was going to be. But then I saw a clip of an interview with Chloe Zhao where she was talking about how she and the (Polish) director of photography don’t really have the English to understand all of the dialogue but Paul Mescal told them that if Shakespeare is performed properly you don’t have to understand the words, you feel them, and I was like UGH FINE I’LL GO.

And I feel sort of triumphant because it was pretty much exactly what I thought it would be. Actually, the only surprise is that Jessie Buckley is so incredibly luminous that Paul Mescal seemed sort of muted in comparison, though he is quite good as well. And the movie is beautiful, and they do a terrific job with the witchiness of it. And of course, I cried my eyes out. I mean, I was struggling not to howl, because that’s the kind of bodily response I have to such a stunning performance of abject misery. The fact that it’s a mother grieving her dead child? Forget about it. I was crying so hard that a lady a row down and a few seats over kindly dangled a kleenex at me, and I promptly drenched it.

And so I fully gave in to the emotional manipulation of the thing, even as I seethed internally at the (to me) really gross story you’re being peddled about how suffering is transmuted into great art. I don’t begrudge anyone their catharsis; if this movie comforts you in your pain, I’m glad, and I can see how people would love it for that. But to me, it’s borderline obscene, and I kind of hate it, and the fact that it works so well and really makes you believe it makes me hate it more.

Still, sometimes you need a good cry, and Jessie Buckley is just mesmerizing.